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Just as much as learning from experiences and people, it's important to me to help mankind whether it be by sharing my knowledge or by doing something such as volunteer work, etc.

The second part seems like a good undertaking but how do you, if you do, go about helping others grow and learn? How do you show others your views in everyday life?

--------------------Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated than that.
It is opening to or recieving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is,
without either clinging to it or rejecting it.

You could maybe help an animal shelter. Thats a wourthy cause. I worked at a WMCA part time all most full time. There you get to teach kids confidence, working as a team, respect for each other and nature. The list goes on. But it was realy rewarding for me making kids stronger. Its a good way of showing the children your views because its your class and you could teach them what ever you want. I tought them about mushrooms and trees and I would read them the Lorax which is by the way my favorite book. And tell them its there duty to take care of this place.

Through my everyday words and actions, I provide a clear example of stupidity, which I encourage not to be imitated.

Like my friend Maynard says, "You're such an inspiration for the ways that I will never ever choose to be!"

But seriously, I am always willing to give advice to people who are going through hard times. I provide an impartial perspective to my friends and aquaintences who are too caught up in their own dramas to see the way out of their problems.
Unfortunately people don't always listen, and I don't like to repeat myself. It's tough to attempt helping people while not getting stuck in a sympathy or guilt trap, yet I try, and even with minimal success, it's worth it.

And of course, when appropriate, I suggest a psychedelic experience and offer to be a guide.

--------------------Here we are, in these bodies, on this planet in an endless universe. This is not the extent of who we are... merely an extension of who we really are.

>> Just as much as learning from experiences and people, it's important to me to help mankind whether it be by sharing my knowledge or by doing something such as volunteer work, etc.

More important than aspiring to benefit others is the cultivation of the genuine intent to do so to the best of your capacities. If we deeply and sincerely care for other beings, we will spontaneously do things to benefit them. We are so vulnurable to deluded pride when we help others, and we destroy all the merit of such an action if our intent is to bolster our reputation, or to exalt ourselves above others mentally.

>> The second part seems like a good undertaking but how do you, if you do, go about helping others grow and learn? How do you show others your views in everyday life?

The ego likes to believe it has answers, and can help others be as good as itself. So quickly our actions to benefit others can be the very cause of our self-cherishing.

It is good that you wish to help others, but it is extremely important to keep aware of yourself, your own mind, and your intentions.

Well, I agree with Ped in that when I talk about how I help others, I am concerned that I may end up focusing on "me" and what a wonderful person I am, instead of giving credit where credit is really due.

I don't see me as the one who is doing the helping, but rather as the physical entity here on earth through which God or the Universe is acting to help others.

I also notice that I am often helped by others. Last night, I was at Starbucks and I left my car lights on all day. When I discovered that my battery was dead, some guy had just sat down with his cup of coffee, outside.

I asked him for help, and he ended up helping me a lot because the car was so dead, it just kept dying. So we had to let it run for a long time while his truck was hooked up to it, and we chatted about a lot of different things.

Turns out, he is a recovering drug addict and alcholic, having a bit of a difficult night. He said that it was helpful running into me, because we talked about a lot of things that helped him to feel better. I said that God probably put him there for me, and me there for him, to help each other.

What I do to help people, and I'm told often by other attorneys how stupid I am, is I give people free legal advice as to how they can solve their problems without paying a lot of money to an attorney. Of course, I tell them if they still can't take care of it, if the problem gets worse, to call me and I will help them. I am ridiculed by some people for not getting them in and signing them up and taking a lot of money from them to do things that they can do themselves.

I also have taken some cases where people were broke but I felt bad for what they were going through.

But I just see it as I am here to be what I am to help people. Money is secondary. I help by talking or by helping people with my talents.

I get a lot of help from people, in return. So the way I see it, I may be helping people, but people are helping me. So it evens out, I guess.

--------------------The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard

I give freely any of the information in my head. I know not everyone finds spending hours researching fun...but that can lead to ignorance. I try and balance this out by helping those around me learn without them having to "work" for it

concerned that I may end up focusing on "me" and what a wonderful person I am, instead of giving credit where credit is really due.

Nice thread(s) man. A couple of wacky anecdotes from moi: A few years ago I became very interested in serving others. I asked my higher power for an opportunity to help. Two days later there was a knock at the door. There stood a poorly dressed man in my nice neighborhood. He claimed to be from my neighborhood. He spoke very well, TOO well in fact. He asked for any food I could contribute. I gave him several cans of food and felt very good about myself. He said he was from my neighborhood, but I knew better. I followed him out, gave him my name and asked his. He said, "I don't need your name." Well, I took that lesson to heart. They don't need our names, our religions, our beliefs- just help as sacrifice without attachment.

A few years later an even odder thing happened: I was driving back home at night from a friend's place. He lived in the country. As I came to the end of a country road that met the highway I saw an old fashioned station wagon pulled off the side of the road. The hood was up and a middle-aged man who looked sort of like a professor was working on his car. It was clear to me that he had had car trouble on the highway and had pulled over. I felt great compassion for him as he was probably feeling alone and helpless far away from his home.

I pulled my car off to the side and walked over and asked him if I could help. In the back of my mind I was aware that what I was doing was good, but this time had no thoughts of any kind of personal reward. He said he needed some electrical tape. I went back to my friends, came back with the tape. He said a couple of odd things that I didn't really think about until later: He nodded towards my car and said, "Nice computer." He also said, "I wish I knew something about physics." He got his car going and took off. I looked towards my car. I had my computer loaded in my front seat. Thing is there is no way in hell he could have known that. You couldn't see it from where he was standing. And what did he mean by "physics"? Metaphysics? Who knows? It's just one of those things I guess.

I asked him for help, and he ended up helping me a lot because the car was so dead, it just kept dying.

I no longer help others with roadside problems. Good Samaritanism is highly over-rated.

1. Picked up a guy whose car broke down in the middle of the desert. After a while, I became tired and asked him to drive for a while. I dozed off to find my car spinning out of control at 60 mph. We flew off the road, snapped my wheels off in the drainage ditch, skidded into a boulder and totalled my (uninsured) car. My cost: $2500 plus unlimited aggravation. My reward: zero.

2. Saw a guy on the roadside with a dead battery. He connected the battery cables backwards and blew out my regulator, alternator, and battery. My cost: over $400; my reward and reimbursement: zero.

3. Came out of arestaurant to find a lady with a dead battery. (I had not yet learned from incident 2.) I HOOKED UP the battery cables this time. Destroyed my battery. The cables were hooked up correctly, but her regulator was shorted, which shorted mine. My cost: 1/2 day off work, $5 for towing and $70 for a new battery. My reward: nada.

4. Was driving home in the freezing rain. A woman in a thin dress with no coat stood by the roadside shivering. I asked her if she was OK, She said nothing. I told her to get in. (Nice water damage on my beautiful leather seats!) Asked if she had anyplace to go or a place to stay, "No," she replied. "What were you doing in the rain?" No response.

I took her home, gave her dry clothes and let her sleep on the couch. She was gone in the morning when I got up as were some of my small valuables. My cost: over $300; my reward: cynicism!

Well, see, I am only just now learning to become a student of karma. But that's only because I'm trying to figure out what is going on in my life.

Swami, there must be some reason for you going through all that. And what you wrote led me to think about something that hasn't happened in a while, and I think I know why now, based on something Ped said to me.

For a LOT of years, almost every time I went to the grocery store, when it was my turn at the check stand, inevitable it was time to change the tape, or time to change the drawer, or the customer directly in front of me had some kind of problem that stalled the entire line.

It became a joke for me. It came to a point that I would turn to the customers behind me and quip, "It's my fault. If I wasn't in line, this wouldn't have happened."

Last summer, I had to wait for a prescription. By that point, I had learned that there was a reason for having to wait, and I had to figure out what it was. I won't go into it here, but turns out there was a good reason. Ever since I learned all that last summer, I haven't had a single problem in a check out lane.

So, Swami, your assignment, if you should choose to accept it, is to figure out WHY, when you help someone with a car problem, you are doomed. Keep helping, but look around while you are helping. Talk to the person you are helping. Etc. Eventually, you will see signs.

--------------------The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard

Okay, I think I am probably going to merit a cookie, because you have probably never broken down. But I'm serious. There is a reason for something like what you experienced happening repeatedly. You have to find out "why".

No one has ever had their car destroyed from having helped me! In fact, it's usually quite a fun experience. I am such a fuckin' extrovert. I say whatever I think, and I think that they think "what a ditz!".

I think I said previously, on some other post, that I accidentally took a guy's keys when I was in line at a starbucks waiting to get a cup of coffee. I arrived back at my office to discover I had an extra set of keys. I wanted to throw them in the trash and pretend I never saw them. It was August, and I was busy.

But I drove back there and, of course, he was still there. I acquired 3 cases out of that incident, at a time when I had no advertising running.

--------------------The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard

This is highly speculative, and you can call it magical thinking or whatever, but I do believe in karma when it comes to things like this. And hey, it is FUN to speculate on what kind of life I must have led in the past based upon my "car karma" this time around. Based upon my experience with car mechanics, I'd say I helped a lot of wagons, and chariots get back on their wheels. Every time I've broken down on the road ( and there have been MANY) save thrice, someone has pulled up within ten minutes with a chain, etc to get me out of my predicament.

The other three times? Well one was when I broke down in my beloved 88 Maxima. This was shortly after my youthful, cross-country, ill-fated trek to California, putt-putting up 9,000 foot mountains and all. ( I'll spare you the details for another post). God I loved that car! Anyway it broke down for good and I had to walk a couple miles to a hick town and leave it there forever. The second one, I had a blowout and pulled off the highway onto an isolated exit. It was late at night and just as I got the spare tire on, a truck pulled up behind me. I walked up to the driver to tell him I was ok, he said coldly , "A day late, a dollar short." I don't get this often, but I felt a deeply malevolent vibe from him. I was glad I had my car ready to roll.

The third one was when my car gradually lost power. I pulled off the highway, trying to limp in to any car repair shop. My car rolled to a stop right next to a church. It was raining and it was cold. The pastor happened to be outside and he called my parents who came to get me. While at the pastors I discovered some knowledge that led to what was to be my vocation. Coincidence? Who really knows?